A series of new reports from World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) has found that the world is severely failing on halting and reversing deforestation despite country pledges made two years ago at COP26. The analysis has found that changing land use and decimating forests to supply international trade in soy, palm oil and cocoa and coffee alone resulted in an estimated 392 million tonnes of CO2 emissions in 2021, despite a COP26 commitment to prevent this. Despite commitments to significantly increase global finance for forest conservation and restoration, WWF has found that globally at least 100 times more public funding is spent on environmentally subsidies (US$378 billion – US$1 trillion) than on finance for forests (US$2.2 billion). Alongside this analysis, new figures from WWF’s Forest Declaration Assessment has found that in 2022, global forest loss was 6.6 million hectares and tropical forest loss was 4.1 million hectares – an area the size of Denmark. Tanya Steele, Chief Executive at WWF, said: “Every hectare of forest we lose takes us closer to a runaway climate change, and despite all the promises our leaders have made to turn this around there’s a huge chasm between where we are and where we should be.”
🚨🌳| NEW REPORT: Despite attempts to bring an end to deforestation by 2030, bigger swathes of essential forests are being cut down every year
Our Forest Pathways report warns the world's forests are in crisis and sets out a blueprint for actionhttps://t.co/0RJXs96gBa
— WWF International Media Relations team (@wwf_media) October 24, 2023
